Guide: Multiple E-mail Accounts With GMail
Let’s face it, most of us here have more than 1 email account at any time. Managing them can be a little time consuming, not to mention annoying. One of the solution to this is to opt for POP/IMAP access and manage them locally with your favorite email client – MS Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Evolution, etc.
But today I want to guide on how to manage emails from multiple mail accounts with just one instance of GMail.
First Step: Get a GMail Account
Of course, this is mandatory, else you won’t be able to proceed with the rest of this guide. Sign up for GMail now!
Second Step: Setup e-mail forwarding from your other accounts.
Note: If you’re using Yahoo! Mail or Windows Live Mail (Hotmail), chances are you have to upgrade to paid account to enjoy this feature. You can still proceed with this tutorial to setup your GMail account to send e-mails on behalf of your other accounts though.
Setting up auto forwarding in GMail
- Logon to your other GMail account(s), and click the “Settings” link on top right of the page
- Click on “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” section
- Now choose “Forward a copy of incoming mail to” and enter your primary GMail account address. The next set of settings, you can choose which one would you like GMail to do after it has forwarded the email.
- Click “Save Changes” and you’re done!
Third Step: Add another email account to your current GMail Account
- Logon to your main GMail account, and click the “Settings” link on top right of the page
- Click on “Accounts“
- Now click on “Add another email address”
- A new window will popup. In this window, enter the name you want to appear to the recipient of the other email account, and then input the email address below.
Click “Next Step” once you’re done.
- GMail will then ask you to send a verification email to the other email address that you would like to use:
Click the “Send Verification” button to proceed.
- Verify your other email address by logging into that email account and clicking the link, or pasting the verification number in the next screen that GMail presented.
Note: If you manage to setup the forwarding earlier, then you should be seeing the verification email sent and forwarded to your main account!
- Once you have verified the e-mail address, you’ll notice that it will be listed in your “Accounts”
Don’t forget to click “Save Settings” (you might have to click the “General” tab sometimes before the button will appear).
How To Send Email on behalf of your other email accounts
If you’ve completed steps 1-3 above, then you’re ready to send emails on behalf of your other mail accounts. To do so, compose your message normally, but note that the “From:” field now becomes a drop down for you to choose from which e-mail account the mail will be sent from:
Click “Send” and you’re done!
Note
If your recipient is using Microsoft Outlook (and maybe other desktop email apps), your actual name will be displayed as “on behalf” of your other account, like follows:
So try not to do anything mischievous to other people.
On my next guide, I will detail on GMail’s filters and labeling. So you can identify emails that comes through which account(s). Stay tuned!
